L.A.B. Name Five New Zealand Artists To Watch

Is the country's music scene heading for an international breakout...?


Kia ora! New Zealand’s Top Streamed artist of 2023, L.A.B. return with their newest album ‘LAB VI’ on February 23rd. Mostly made up of reggae with a mix of electronic, blues, rock and funk, L.A.B are right in the heart of New Zealand’s thriving music scene.

To mark the recent New Zealand day celebrations and their new album, L.A.B vocalist Joel talks to Clash about their Top 5 New Zealand artists for you to check out…

Troy Kingi – ‘All Your Ships Have Sailed’

Troy Kingi is a true artist of many different hats – an actor and a killer muso. He’s in the middle of making 10 albums in 10 years in 10 different genres, so there’s something for everyone in there. We’ve been fortunate enough to play a bunch of shows with Troy in New Zealand, and he always brings the vibe. This track is one of his grooviest, it won the Silver Scroll, basically NZ’s top songwriting award. That bassline is something you just can’t escape.

Dallas Tamaira – ‘Just Fine’

What can we say about Dallas, a true legend. We recently did an interview for the BBC’s Music Life Podcast with Dallas and a few other artists, and it’s always inspiring to hear from an artist like him.

As the frontman of Fat Freddy’s Drop, he’s made so many absolute classics. His solo stuff has just so much soul to it too, this is one that’s a particularly choice one.

Summer Thieves – ‘Saturday Night’

We share a label at home – Loop – with these guys, and we’ve gotten very close with them over the past few years. We’ve done a little bit of writing with them, and this is one track that Brad (our drummer) and I had a hand in writing with the boys.

Summer Thieves are always pretty cheeky with their tunes, and this is one that just has a good strut to it. They’re a band who’ve been really grinding live and are starting to do some awesome things.

Leisure – ‘Feeling Free’

Leisure are a band that we’ve been big fans of for a while. We love listening to them on the road, and all of their albums are killer.

We did a bit of writing for our new album with Josh, one of their songwriters, and put together our track ‘Follow’ with him. They’re all really nice guys, and the music they create is super laid back too.

Alien Weaponry – ‘Raupatu’

Me and the boys all love heavy metal and hard music. These guys are weapons! Seeing the stages they play across the world is super inspiring, and to see them putting te reo Māori, NZ’s indigenous language, front and centre is just epic.

L.A.B’s new album ‘LAB VI is out on February 23rd. 

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